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$1 billion one dollar coins & Fed wasting Tax payer’s dollars

July 1st, 2011 Vijaianand

Below is the picture published by NPR(National Public Radio) this week on the millions of $1 dollar coins being sitting idle in Federal reserves all over nation and doing nothing. I was really shocked and frustrated.

When the nation is in the crisis mode, congress and President is fighting over increasing the debt ceiling, these $1 dollar coins are laying in the federal reserve and numbers continues to grow every quarter as they continue to make these $1 dollar coins nobody really wants to use, thanks to government program authorized by Congress in 2005.

According to the NPR story, around 2.4 billion coins have been minted since 2007 costing $720 million of tax payers dollars. Only 1.4 billion coins are sold to public so far and government made $680 million profit out of it. The pile of idle coins, which so far cost $300 million to manufacture, could double by the time the program ends in 2016.

As per the program, coins were made with former presidents face changing every quarter followed by the success and famous of 50 states quarter coin series which attracted many Americans. So government expected similar response to these $1 dollar coins compare to the bills. Also government was planning to make profit by making the coins for less of 30 cents and sell it to public for $1 but it didn’t work out. It turned out goverment has to spend $1.5 dollar to put $1 in circulation.

At the same time, many of us don’t like to keep coins in our wallet and bills are much more easier and convenient. With advances happening everyday in the electronic world which is moving towards plastic cards, smartphone shopping and so forth. I don’t think coins would be good choice to many Americans in coming future.

Like me, I am sure many of you are really not happy to hear this story from NPR While many Americans are just making few dollars a day in this bad economy to make their living, these $1 billion one dollars are sitting in the vault doing nothing for the economy.